


my crown is called content

by Aquaphobe



Series: pros and cons [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Adulthood, Childhood Sweethearts, Coffee Shops, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Old Friends, Past Relationship(s), Unresolved Tension, past mistakes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22914583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquaphobe/pseuds/Aquaphobe
Summary: The first time that Kenny McCormick sees Leopold 'Butters' Stotch in over seven years, his body does a weird sort of lurch and all of his words die in his throat."Hey there, Ken," the other man says after the silence has stretched tight enough to snap. "It's good to see you."Is it? Kenny's not so sure.
Relationships: Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak, Kenny McCormick/Leopold "Butters" Stotch, Red/Kevin Stoley (mentioned), Tricia Tucker/Karen McCormick (mentioned)
Series: pros and cons [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1260848
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	my crown is called content

**Author's Note:**

> just a short fic i've been writing in drips and drabs over the course of the last year or so. very unpolished, but also pretty dear to my heart.
> 
> if any longtime readers of mine stumble across this, then they probably know me well enough by now to expect a playlist, and really, [who am i to disappoint them?](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiUaElwXV5IDroZu0ZCPHV4s62sWJmp80) ;)))

_'my crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy'_

Kenny

The first time that Kenny McCormick sees Leopold 'Butters' Stotch in over seven years, his body does a weird sort of lurch, and all of his words die in his throat.

Kenny's grimy and stinking bitterly of beer and oil from a hard day at work bent over the bonnet of his broken-down wagon. Having retired to Skeeter's for an early afternoon drink to quench his thirst and stave off his frustration at another foiled job, he'd ended up staying for much longer than anticipated. He's no mechanic and he refuses to do proper research into the many, many issues he's trying to contend with. Especially since that'd feel somehow like cheating after the hunk of junk's lasted his family almost two decades under his and his dad's questionable care. It's tiring work, but it's a good way to waste his few days off.

(Drinking away the time is even better - if not incredibly pathetic. His catchphrase these days seems to be, "Put it on the tab, Skeets.")

When Craig turns up just after three for his afternoon shift in his uncle's bar, Kenny turns around and peers at the man. At twenty-seven, Tucker is tall and lanky as ever, but his countenance is soft (it's a rare day that he's angry the way he was back in high school) and his eyes are crinkled at the corners, as if he does an uncharacteristic amount of grinning in his free time. Sort of unnerving, since he's got a home life that would give the average guy hives just to think of.

"Brave man," Kenny says, slapping his back as Craig passes.

All he gets is a snort.

Once his future brother-in-law's set up behind the bar, Kenny gets a proper look at his face. The guy seems about ten levels of sleep-deprived, if the bruises under his eyes and the dark stubble coming through on his jaw is anything to go by.

"Dude, you slept any time in the last week?" Kenny asks, voice dry and the corners of his mouth curled into a smile. He takes a slow pull on the beer he's nursing as he waits for the other man to finish rolling up his sleeves and hunting for a rag to wipe the sticky patches from the countertop.

Craig spares him a half-hearted glare, but otherwise carries on with his job. " _You_ try dealing with a teething baby, a three-year-old princess and a chronic insomniac all at once."

Holding up cold, damp hands in the universal sign for, ' _whoa dude, white flag,_ ' he does his level-best not to grin. Says in a tone only slightly influenced by his fifth drink, "I tried to tell you not to get brats at our age. We're still kids ourselves."

His friend pauses and looks up to give Kenny a painfully flat stare. "We're three years off of thirty. I've been with my husband for seventeen years. Settling down and starting a family is _normal_ at our age."

That same hollow pang of... of _something_ echoes through his stomach, but it's years old and easy to ignore, these days. He smirks through it and shrugs - takes another swig from his glass. Licks the foam from his lips and says, "Think I'll leave the kiddy rearing to you two and the girls. God knows Karen's broody enough for all of us. It's only a matter of time before Trish caves." He gives a waggle of his eyebrows.

(Purposefully doesn't mention his deadbeat brother Kevin and the guy's four young kids. Kenny's been an uncle for the last eight years, and he's only seen the lot of them a handful of times - mostly through secondhand photos. It's an old wound, but then again he never was close to Kev, was he? Not much could've been expected, after his brother ditched the family and moved off to the other side of Denver. When you grow up in South Park, moving away's practically a rite of passage.)

The reminder of their little sisters being an item has Craig rolling his eyes. "The day Ruby willingly becomes a mom is the day you stop being a manwhore."

"Hey," Kenny says loudly, all false protest. "I'll have you know, I'm loyal to _all_ my conquests. Equally."

Which isn't really saying much, since despite popular gossip and the occasional appearance put in at Peppermint Hippo when Clyde's back in town for a visit, Kenny doesn't really sleep around too often. Prior to Karen and Tricia getting together, he'd had a fairly serious on-and-off thing with Red. They'd decided to drop it when their families had gotten involved - but that had been several years ago, now. As far as he's aware, she goes by 'Mrs Stoley', these days. He'd also rekindled his childhood romance with Tammy Warner for a few months two years or so back, and had had a brief fling with Millie Larson last summer. Other than that, he'd been casual with Bridon Gueermo and David Rodriguez during his early twenties, but... none of it had stuck. None of it really meant anything.

It was simple to figure out that his heart just wasn't in dating, even when his dick _was_. Sex was a pretty easy temptation to ignore, once the threat of emotions came into play.

He thinks that Craig maybe mutters something belittling under his breath, but Kenny ignores it with the ease of extensive practice. Considering he spends most days with Tucker's better half, he's grown a thick skin to snarky comments and general sass.

Instead, because he's feeling particularly nostalgic today, he drains half his drink without another word and pulls out his cellphone. The cracked screen lights up as he unlocks it. Pauses to study the background - an image of him and the gang out by Stark's Pond during a party they'd had when a load of the kids that had moved away graduated from college. It was one of the last times the majority of them had been together. Even now when he looks at it - him, Kyle, Stan, Clyde, Token, Craig and Tweek all squeezed into frame, faces varying shades of drunk or high - he smiles.

Mouth hitching up at the corners, he taps onto his gallery and flicks back through the sparse photos from recent months. June; May; April; March; February; January. Nothing more interesting than the odd picture of a fat, lounging cat he'd seen on the wall outside City Wok, or the license plate of some dude who'd crashed into his wagon in the old mall parking lot, or his mom and sister posing with fake smiles at one of their monthly family meals. There aren't really many things that Kenny bothers recording, these days. For sure nothing special.

It's not until he's scrolled through a few good years of 'nothing special' that the pictures begin to pop up more frequently. Him and a couple of the guys out for drinks during their visits home - big, shiny faced smiles and ugly close-up angles. He and his baby sister outside the movie theatre after she'd gotten her hair cut, the picture overexposed but Karen cute as ever. Kenny and Tammy on a date, pulling stupid faces and holding greasy takeout containers. A shot of Red cross legged on the floor, giving him a pedicure and grinning. The Marsh family pup lying on his back with four paws up in the air at odd angles, showing off his patchy belly for attention.

And so the photos go on, increasing in volume, until there are several of singular events, random shots of hikes through the mountains with Kyle, or of some trip to Denver during Token and Nicole's housewarming party. He's happy in the pictures - or at the very least, able to pull off the same smile he always does - and that kind of surprises him. It's a weird ache in the pit of his stomach, to remember how bright and loud and _busy_ those days were, compared to the slow crawl of his life now. So he keeps on flicking by, every shot he pauses to study hollowing him out just a little more.

By the time he's gone back far enough to see him - to see that round, pink face and dishevelled blonde hair - Kenny's not smiling anymore. His finger hovers over the screen, his breath shudders out of his chest, and his throat grows tight.

For a long time, he just sits there and stares. Stares at the spiky blonde bangs, the easy way they'd melded together (bruised arm thrown around a thin shoulder), the wide grin complete with pearly white teeth. The flushed cheek, pressed into his bare clavicle. Orange sheets crumpled around them, and a pair of sleepy, crinkled blue eyes.

( _They'd spent two whole days in bed, wrapped around one another and uncaring about anything beyond the thin walls of Kenny's apartment._

_"Ken," he'd said, voice soft and lilting, tired eyes smiling. "Ken, c'mon bud, we gotta get up at some point, or else I'll starve. You want me wastin' away in here?"_

_"S'fine," he'd replied, scraping his teeth along the curve of a bared shoulder and chasing it as the other boy pulled away with a goofy giggle. "There's still some maple syrup and whipped cream left over. Sure we can rustle up a proper meal outta that."_

_The squeals and snorts and playful shouts that followed were some of the sweetest sounds Kenny thinks he's ever heard._ )

Blinking back into himself, the man switches the screen off and flips it over, so it's face-down on the sticky bar top. He's proud to notice that his hand is mostly steady when he reaches for his drink.

Throwing the rest of his glass back in one go, Kenny sets it down with a loud _clunk_ and stands up. Pockets his cell and waves a grease-stained hand at Craig, who's halfway down the bar chatting to a slumped over Jimbo.

"You calling it a day?" the dark haired man calls after him, not quite managing to sound as if he gives a fuck.

"Yeah man, I got shit to do," he lies as he pulls the hood of his parker up over his head and steps out onto the the cracked sidewalk, straight into the spattering rain. The heavy door swings shut behind him, and Ken pauses. Breathes in the scent of damp and car exhausts and the clinging stink of beer that's wrapped around him like a veil.

South Park is a kind of comforting monotony. Grey skies and white snow and black roads. The colours have been drowned out by memories of happier, wilder times. Back when this place was full of adventure and friendship and adults who just didn't understand. Nowadays, it's quiet. Repetitive. Kenny dresses in the same clothes, goes to work at Tweek Bros at the same time five days a week, drinks the same pints alone in the evenings, sleeps on the same side of the same, empty bed every night.

Almost all of his friends moved away years back, and he's pretty sure that stripped the magic out of the town. But that's fine. There's nothing wrong with leading a quiet life.

With that in mind, he allows himself an extra minute to gather himself back up, and then takes off down the street, boots making wet slaps on the paving stones and hands thrust deep into the pockets of his stained, torn up work jeans.

...

Before heading home, he stops in at the nearest grocery store, a tiny corner shop with little more than a series of shitty microwave meals, candy, cans of pop, spirits, smokes and dirty mags. Not a vegetable in sight.

Kenny loads his arms up with the biggest bar of white chocolate he can find, a group-size pack of Doritos, a couple microwave burgers and a six pack of beer. No better consolation for his alcohol-induced misery than more of the same, he thinks as he dumps it all down on the counter.

The teen manning the tills looks him up and down with a flat stare and a loud pop of her gum, before deigning him inoffensive enough to serve. Kenny returns the unimpressed glower and empties his pocket (a grubby handful of coins, crumpled notes and lint) onto the counter for her to pick through with her glittering pink manicure. The face she makes almost gives him cause to smirk.

Back when he was a kid, Kenny thinks as he loads his purchases back into his arms and walks out the store, he would've found a girl like that attractive. Rhinestones on her nails, overworked makeup, highlights in her bangs and a 'fuck you' attitude... she would've been just his type. Now all he can think is that she seems like an arrogant brat, and finds himself hoping that his future nieces and nephews are raised to be more polite. (God, when did he get so damn old?)

Shaking his head, he trudges on. Across the road, past the empty park and the dilapidated basketball court they'd spent hours playing in as kids, and towards the apartment complex that had been built on the outskirts of town over fifteen years ago. It was always a bit of a shithole, but back when he finally saved up for his very first place of his own, he hadn't cared about how cramped it was, or how there was already damp on the walls under the windows. It had been a temporary thing, a stop-off point before he moved onto better places, bigger dreams.

Until, of course, it wasn't.

It's been over a decade now since he moved in. The hall stinks of piss, the railing is rusty and the paint all the way up the stairwell is peeling, but... it's home. A little nook in the world that belongs entirely to him - cracked ceiling, black mould and all.

He's so caught up juggling his groceries and digging his keys out of his jeans pocket that at first, he doesn't notice the person standing outside of his door. Only when he looks up, midway through a complicated string of curses, does he spot him. Freezes up, one mucky boot in the hallway and the other on the top step.

Kenny's stomach drops right down into his boots. The color drains from his face, and he's left chilled through to the bone.

Outside his apartment is Butters Stotch. Pale, tousled blonde hair; long, fluffy grey coat; knee-high black boots and a blue cashmere scarf. With those golden studs in his ears and that smart black satchel hooked over one of his shoulders, Butters looks every bit the designer he'd left town hoping to become. He's a creature from another planet; a man washed up on a foreign shore; a rich city boy that turned off on the wrong road and somehow found himself stranded in South Park with a broken down car and no idea where to go.

The worst part of it all is the way that the other man's expression twists itself up as he peers over at him - a weak, insincere smile in a washed out face. The skipping of his eyes over Kenny's work clothes and the junk food piled against his chest.

Judging him. Always judging him.

Great to know that he hasn't grown out of _that_ particular habit.

"Hey there, Ken," he says after the silence has stretched tight enough to snap. "It's good to see you."

Is it? Kenny's not so sure.


End file.
